About

SEK 371,249

pledged of SEK 250,000 goal

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backers

Help us to raise the money to print and ship a copy of this book to you this summer. We humbly invite you to participate as a co-publisher and are offering discounts on the first 1000 copies during this campaign. Thank you for enabling us to further our work farming, innovating & educating for the benefit of all....

Making Small Farms Work brings a fresh perspective to the Regenerative Agriculture & Permaculture space, offering a deeply pragmatic and profitable approach to a farming life worth living. This is a visually rich and down-to-earth 'how-to' approach to designing, installing and managing small farms. Presented in our no-nonsense style, this book is short on theory; it’s a book about getting things done, and going about it in a well planned, holistic and effective manner. This book is written for anyone wanting to farm in a way that restores the soil, reinvigorates local economy and food systems whilst maintaining a good livelihood for the farmer.

“Industrial chemical agriculture, producing twenty times as much dead eroding soil as food needed every year, is the most destructive industry of mankind - more so than fossil fuels or any mining. Developing a new biologically-based, and holistically managed, regenerative agriculture is imperative if civilization as we know it is to survive. I heartily recommend Richards book for all socially conscious new and old farmers.”

Contents of Making Small Farms Work

“This might be one of the broadest overviews of designing regenerative farm systems aside from Mollison’s original “black book.” Richard’s book is likely to become an important manual of regenerative farming practices for those starting a farm of any scale. This is a timely and detailed account of crucial considerations for starting and managing a farm; I cannot think of anyone, from the beginner to seasoned farmer and homesteader, who doesn’t have something to learn from Richard’s work starting and managing Ridgedale Permaculture.”

I have written this book to share some of my diverse experiences with regenerative design, farming and project management through the lens of our own farm, as well as to address the misconception that small farms are not viable. Our farm in Sweden has quickly become a beacon in Europe as a thriving example of effective farm scale Permaculture & Regenerative Agriculture. Our own farm is small at 10ha (25ac), but our approach to design presented in the book is scalable from 1- 1000ha. The book is stuffed full of colour images that illustrate everything described, as well as sharing financial details, spreadsheets, decision-making processes and all the other often-neglected elements fundamental to Making Small Farms Work.

6 months farming, 6 months winter up here at 59ºN

Who would benefit from this book?

Farmers interested in a more resilient future

Homesteaders

Permaculture Designers looking to empower their approach to design

Permaculture Educators looking to deepen their knowledge base

Project leaders/ NGO workers

Landscape Designers who wish to broaden their horizons

Ecological/ Social Entrepreneurs

Anyone curious to learn about Ridgedale in more detail

Anyone interested in real food

A very beneficial aspect of this book is the synthesis of my experience in pioneering education alongside my work as a full-time farmer. Participants from our training programs in different parts of the globe consistently reflect back the potency of this mix. We are not into wild and fantastical theories or following the latest trends in the movement; just a solid and scientific approach to building the sort of future we want our children to grow up in, shared in a way that you can fully understand. We believe this book is written in a manner that is simultaneously comprehensible to a beginner, and yet will offer much to experienced farmers, designers and homesteaders. It really captures the process of starting a farm of this sort from scratch, the most critical time for any farm or project.

“This book is a milestone for farm scale permaculture…. a book that is one of a kind…. Every page is fact-filled, sharing heavyweight information…. Reading this book has been a pleasure, and I see many more people will be inspired to get involved in regenerative agriculture. I guess that a farmer or wannabe farmer will be more attracted to tackle a mind opening book like Making Small Farms Work, rather than one that makes farming seem like a stroll in the field. I am setting up my own farm too at present, and this book has arrived at the right moment. It has already helped me think about my design, about my whole project, in a new light.”

Some more Context….

I attribute much of the success of our own project to several factors; primarily built upon our approach that integrates practices from other ecological design platforms. For us, there are three main legs to the stool we use in our work. Besides Permaculture design we rely primarily on Holistic Management and Keyline design. We also draw a lot of inspiration from pioneering US farmer Joel Salatin of Polyface Farms.

Most of us interested in Permaculture & Regenerative Agriculture in Europe look abroad for inspiration. There is currently no literature in Europe covering the breadth of material presented in this book, and globally there are few financially viable examples of Permaculture farms. We also see few comprehensive cold climate examples, so it feels great to share our experiences from up here at 59ºN.

Whilst we are situated in the most challenging economic and cultural context I have experienced anywhere on the globe, this book is very relevant and instructive for people farming in any European climate zones (or equivalent), and worth reading for anyone interested in this field. Indeed, we have been honoured to host people from over 40 countries who have travelled to the farm to participate in our unique education programs.

This book does not aim to be encyclopedic or offer all the answers. There are no radical innovations that will suddenly make farming an easy profession. It does, however, share an approach that looks far into the future, takes full responsibility for our actions and imparts deep insight and practical experience in the context of well planned and holistically managed operations.

"Richard and Yohanna are an invasive species in Sweden; threatening to destroy our traditional culture of hopelessness. This book may seem harmless, full of photographs and practical advice for small farms, but it is actually spreading revolutionary seeds that jeopardise agribusiness and the alienation between people and nature. Romantic dreamers have been advocating rural livelihoods before, whilst struggling to make a living off the land. Ridgedale Permaculture seem to actually know what they are up to. These folks are walking the talk of Holistic Management, enabling them to manoeuvre within complexity without losing sight of what they really want to achieve. So, good people, if you are standing up for your rights as victims of your circumstances, stay away from these people, and this book."

Jörgen Andersson (Fjällbete) Nordic Savory Hub

Why are we self-publishing?

At our farm www.ridgedalepermaculture.com we go to great lengths to sell our premium farm produce directly to customers. We want to post you the book right from the farm.

We can get the book to you much faster than if we went with a publisher.

We want to publish the book exactly how we created it, not edited to someone else's preferences or market concerns.

We want to facilitate translations to other languages though the community networks.

The retail price of the book is 350 SEK (Swedish Krona). By backing this campaign you secure yourself a copy that will arrive with you this summer, and the quicker you buy a copy, the cheaper it is. After the campaign copies will only be available from the farm or via our website. There will be no Ebook version of this book, and we will not be supporting corporations like Amazon.

Costs involved in printing & shipping Making Small Farms Work

The high cost of living in Sweden

Kickstarter includes the postage costs in the campaign total, hence the high campaign target. We aim to pre-sell enough copies to go to print at a reasonable cost, with the first 1000 copies available at discounted rates. Unfortunately, Sweden is an extremely expensive country. If you find the postage rates on this campaign high, count yourself lucky you are not living or creating a farm here in Sweden!

There are flat rates for posting this book from Sweden, which will weigh over 1.3kg;

Within Sweden 70 SEK

Within Europe 200 SEK

Rest of the world 250 SEK

All rewards cover the cost of the hardcover sewn hem book, packaging and handling at the farm. Postage is set to your location. The quicker you buy a copy the cheaper it is for you. The hardcover adds no additional cost to postage and we believe in producing a premium quality book that will last a lifetime.

"Pay attention as you read this book. What Richard and Yohanna have accomplished in two years sets the bar high. This book will show you the building blocks that are very useful not just to find, design and establish a commercial farm, but to do it all in a very efficient and well-planned way."

Translations

The first translation will be into Swedish and Polish and are already underway. We will announce details to the relevant people when we know them. We hope the Swedish copy will be available at the end of the summer. The Polish copy is being translated, printed and distributed by our friends at CoHabitat and should be available late this year. We are open to offers for translation from professional translators and independent publishing houses, but please do not contact us regarding this until the initial campaign is over as we will not be able to respond.

Thank you so much for your support. This book is eagerly awaited by many folks and will only go to print (along with subsequent translations) if the campaign is a success. If you are excited about this, please share this personally on social media and let’s get it out there.

...farming, innovating & educating for the benefit of all....

Risks and challenges

The book is written and is in the final stages of proofreading and copy editing. The main issue with self-publishing is that we cannot easily anticipate how many copies it will sell. Obviously with printing books, short print runs are relatively expensive. This campaign is designed around a good balance point that keeps the cost of the book the same as it would be from a publisher, and yet cheaper for initial backers.

As it is self-published there has not been a professional team dedicated to the book for months. We think it looks and reads great, and so do others, but it may not be as 'polished' as if a publishing house were publishing it after many months of editing.

If we achieve our aims we should be able to supply the books in the suggested time frame assuming all goes to plan with the printers. If we do happen to pre- sell significantly more copies it may delay later backers receiving their copy. In this case, we would employ someone to accelerate the shipping process.